[MUD-Dev] Mountaineering and Athletics

[Vincent Archer]

According to Brandon J. Van Every:

> I grabbed the idea of "Athletics" out of Morrowind, a 3D CRPG.  In
> 3D you generally have a velocity, so varying it is an obvious
> thing to do.  But judging by Morrowind, I'd say you shouldn't do
> it.  Crawling along at a snail's pace really sucks!

Even if you aren't crawling at a snail's pace, variable movement
rates in a "continuous" multiplayer game can be real bad.

Continuous here refers to a game where coordinates are a close
approximation of a continuum, not a discrete system (i.e. not
room-based). This applies chiefly to 3D or even 2D games, as long as
their coordinates are not coarse grained.

Asheron's Call is a good example of a game where you have a Running
Skill (you may even specialise in it, should you want it). The
higher your running skill, the faster you run. It doesn't take much
skill to run at a decent rate.

However, as soon as you move in a group, you end up with the simple
problems that some members will run faster than the rest of the
group. No matter how fast you are, you will have to travel as fast
as the slowest group member. And thus, the fast ones end up
irritated, because they have to stop frequently to let the slow ones
catch up.

  (In Asheron's Call, this tend to disappear at higher levels, as
  there's a upper limit to run skill, and even before that, the
  difference between high and higher run skills isn't very large
  anymore, compared to lower levels)

But even if everyone in your game has the same running speed, the
mere existence of any effect that makes you run faster is an instant
magnet (the "SOW PLZ" of EQ, SOW being "Speed Of the Wolf", the
basic spell that adds 50% to your running speed).

--
	Vincent Archer			Email:	archer at frmug.org

All men are mortal.  Socrates was mortal.  Therefore, all men are Socrates.
							(Woody Allen)

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